Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling from afar,

as if in heaven distant gardens wilted;

they fall with gestures of negation.



At night the heavy earth in somber evocation

falls into solitude from every star.



We all do fall. This hand here falls,

and look at others: it is inherent in them all.



And yet, there’s Someone who forestalls

in infinitely tender hands each fall.

Archaic torso of Apollo



We never knew his audacious head

in which the eyeballs ripened. But

his torso still glows like a candelabra

in which his gaze, merely turned down low,



still lingers and gleams. Otherwise the downward

curving breast could not dazzle you, nor would a slight

turn of the loins educe a smile upon encountering

that central point where begetting begins.



Otherwise this stone would stand disfigured and

abridged below the shoulders’ transparent plunge

and would not shimmer like the pelts of carnivores;



and would not burst from all its confining borders

like a star: for there is not a single point

that does not see you. You must change your life.